Product Leadership Blog

Radical Optimism or Why Every Leader is a Futurist

As a leader, you are by definition a futurist. (This is something I’ve learned from Alicia Shao just recently). Let’s explore this for a second. Your role is to look ahead and anticipate the challenges and opportunities that your team will face in the future. You study and analyze trends, forecasts, and scenarios to understand how the future might unfold. You provide insights and recommendations on how to prepare for and shape the future. In times like these, when the world is changing rapidly and unpredictably, this role is more important than ever.

Product LeadershipPetra Wille13 April 2023Radical Optimism, Futurist

How I Use the Decision Stack in Product Leadership Coaching Sessions

If you find yourself struggling to make effective decisions in your role as a product leader, or if you're having difficulty coming up with a cohesive product strategy, you're not alone. Perhaps your direct reports are constantly turning to you for guidance and direction, unsure of which path to take. Sound familiar? If so, you may benefit from learning more about the "Decision Stack" framework developed by Martin Eriksson.

STRONG Conversations: Spring 2023 Edition

Hello lovely product people! It’s been a while since my last STRONG Conversations roundup post. I’ve been a little busy with my product Communities of Practice research, preparation for the Product at Heart conference, and of course, my usual client work. But I’m happy to say that I’m still out there sharing my thoughts on product leadership in various podcasts, meetups, and webinars.

Here’s where you can catch all my latest appearances.

On stage and on airPetra Wille28 February 2023Strong Conversations

Product Communities of Practice: Everything You Need to Know

When you work in product, there’s never a dull moment. You’re always learning and growing, whether you’re developing your core product skills, enhancing your understanding of your customers, or helping your team evolve and grow. So it’s no wonder that product people are often asking questions like: What should I learn to get better at my job? How do we scale people development? How do we evolve our product culture?

Communities of PracticePetra Wille15 February 2023CoP, Communities of Product Practice

Rituals for Product Communities of Practice: A Round-up of Ideas & Inspiration

In the early stages of product Communities of Practice (CoPs), you simply need to provide the time and space for people to gather and share knowledge. But eventually, as your CoP matures and grows larger, you’ll probably want to establish some regular rituals, whether it’s meetings, workshops, casual get-togethers, or places to share information. Good rituals are like glue: They hold things together and provide a certain rhythm to community activities.

Communities of PracticePetra Wille13 February 2023Communities of Product Practice

Free Templates: Community Guidelines for Your Community of Practice

When maturing a Community of Practice (CoP), you might want to create community guidelines that encourage freedom of speech but prevent the spread of disinformation and ensure your community is a safe place to share and learn together. But how do you know what to include? For this post, I have three examples of CoP guidelines you can steal (use exactly as they are written) or simply use as inspiration.

Communities of PracticePetra Wille7 February 2023Community Guidelines

Detailed Results from My Survey: Cross-Organizational Product Community of Practice Participants

In this post, you’ll have the chance to comb through the results from the survey respondents who participate in cross-organizational CoPs. These are CoPs that are offered by a person, company, or entity outside of your employer. For these types of CoPs, members generally choose to participate and may even need to pay a fee for their membership.

Communities of PracticePetra Wille16 January 2023Communities of Product Practice, Survey

Detailed Results from My Survey: Company Internal Product Communities of Practice

In this post, you’ll have the chance to comb through the results from the survey respondents who participate in company internal CoPs. As it is likely super boring for you to go through all the answers in detail, I’ve aggregated similar answers and each bullet point summarizes them. The examples in parentheses are quotes so that you get an idea of exactly how people were phrasing things.

Communities of PracticePetra Wille16 January 2023Communities of Product Practice, Survey

What I Learned from Surveying Over 100 People About Product Communities of Practice

I dedicated a large portion of 2022 to learning all about product Communities of Practice (CoP). My research involved two main activities: conducting in-depth interviews with CoP leaders/organizers and running a survey of CoP participants. The survey results were such a treasure trove of information that I couldn’t fit it all into a single blog post….

Communities of PracticePetra Wille16 January 2023Communities of Product Practice, Survey

My Coaching Practice - What I Do And How I Do It

Are you a Head of Product, Product Team Lead, or CPO looking for someone to support you as you set about developing a strong product organisation? Look no further. I can help you to become the confident and self-aware product leader you want to be.

Coaching, All blog posts, Product LeadershipPetra Wille28 December 2022Coaching, Results

A Few Thoughts for Aspiring Product Coaches

Over the past few years, I’ve received an increasing number of requests from aspiring product coaches. I was curious about why that was the case, then overwhelmed by the number of requests, and ultimately decided to share some of my thoughts on this topic.

PersonalPetra Wille22 December 2022Product Coach

Learning from Other Product People: Sarah Reeves on the Product Community of Practice at StepStone

2022 is almost over, but I have one final Community of Practice (CoP) interview to share with you! This one is a little different since I’ve been working with Sarah Reeves and StepStone to help build out and mature the product CoP. Be sure to check this interview out if you’re especially interested in the early stages of getting a CoP up and running.

All blog posts, Communities of PracticePetra Wille16 December 2022Interview, Product Ops, CoP

What I’m Dedicating 2023 to: A Look at the Year Ahead

Keeping focus is definitely a challenge as a one-woman show. And that is why I put together this annual blog post: Because it helps me with exactly that. Gaining focus. I come back to this post multiple times throughout the year and I sometimes use it when I have to politely explain to people why I can’t do what they want me to do (speak at a meetup, share my opinion on software they are developing, give them some advice, speak at their conference, write a chapter of their book, the list goes on and on!).

Personal, All blog postsPetra Wille15 December 2022Personal Retro, 2022, 2023, Outlook, Planning

End-of-the-year Reflection: Stop Living on Autopilot

We all know: constraints are good. They are the fuel for our creative thinking. But for life choices and career planning, I see too many people accepting constraints way too easily. They are living on autopilot. Instead of creating their own future, they are more accepting of the future others have in mind for them.

Bite sized tips, All blog posts, Product LeadershipPetra Wille9 December 2022bite sized, feelings, autopilot

Learning from Other Product People: Priya Biswas on the Product Community of Practice at ATB Financial

Throughout 2022, I’ve been conducting interviews with people who lead and participate in product Communities of Practice (CoP). I’m excited to share the next installment in my series, featuring Priya Biswas, Director of Product Management, Business Analysis and Organizational Change Management Practice at ATB Financial.

How to introduce yourself as a product person - Better Introductions

I recently attended a product meetup and have to share an observation: Many of us could better introduce ourselves. So I’m sharing real-life examples with this post of how an improved introduction could look like.

Introducing Product at Heart!

From MTP Engage Hamburg to Product at Heart - what you can expect and why you should get your tickets early. Read the full story here.

Real-life events, All blog postsPetra Wille14 November 2022Product at Heart, Conferencing, Conference

Learning from Other Product People: Nesrine Changuel on the Product Community of Practice at Google

We’re back with the next interview in our series of discussions with product Community of Practice (CoP) leaders. I’m thrilled to introduce you to Nesrine Changuel, a Product Manager for Chrome iOS, who’s based at Google’s Paris office.

Learning from Other Product People: Zainab Arilesere on ProductTank Lagos and Running an Informal Community of Practice at Omnibiz Africa

As part of my ongoing research into product Communities of Practice (CoP), I have been conducting interviews with people who organize and participate in these communities, both within their companies and in the larger external product community. In today’s post, you’ll hear from Zainab Arilesere who is the Head of Product at Omnibiz Africa as well as the organizer of ProductTank Lagos.

Want to Launch or Mature Your Product Community of Practice? Start Here!

A CoP will help product people share best practices and ways to solve specific challenges. It will make it easier for product people to understand how your organization works and how to effectively work with others outside the product team. This post talks about how to get started with your product community and it contains tips on how to mature this community over time.